I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
Near the end of His prayer before the cross, Jesus tells the Father two things about the men He is leaving behind. He has given them the Father's word. The world has already turned against them. Then He gives the reason, and He measures it by Himself.
Earlier in the same prayer Jesus speaks of "the words" the Father gave Him. Here the term changes, and commentators treat the change as deliberate.
This is not, as in verse 8, "the words" the Father gave to the Son, which the Son passed on to the disciples. Those were the communications of love. By them the disciples knew truly that He came from the Father, and believed to their joy that the Father sent Him. It is here (as in verse 6) the Father's "word," the expression of His mind. … In the world they were to be witnesses of Him, and He has given them the Father's word. The world hated them — not only for that word, offensive as it is to the world, but because the disciples who had it were not of the world, just as their Master is not. This is the true measure of unworldliness. The world cannot bear it, and the religious world least of all.
Up to this point Jesus has set the disciples before the Father. Now He places them in relation to the world — in His own place.
And now He puts them in His own place, not with the Father, but in respect of the world. … It is in the same place of testimony that He had been in. … There I learn that He has made their place what His was, and has given them His testimony, the Father's word — not words here. The world will not bear it. If you get into this place the world will not stand it. The world will bear a great deal of religion, but not the Father.
What the Father gave the Son now belongs to them — the cost included.
The Father's name is revealed to them. The Father's word is given to them. The Father's care is assured to them. Christ's joy is their joy. Christ's reproach and Christ's place as a stranger are their portion in this world.
The world's hatred does not come from rude behaviour or from argument. It comes from their presence.
Now this is what drew upon them the hatred of the world. Their presence represented the Father in testimony. It told the world that not everything belonged to it — that what was of God did not. There were men in relationship with the Father. But the result was that they were not of the world. No judgment was carried out, but the separation was made.
The verse states what believers are, and it names the measure.
We are left in the world on the distinct understanding that we are not of it. We are not part of the world-system that surrounds us, and for that reason the world hates the Christian. Notice that the Lord here makes Himself the standard. We are identified with Him in this.
That standard is absolute, though daily life may lag far behind it.
It is much to be feared that few grasp the depth and meaning of our Lord's words, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." … The measure of a believer's separation from the world is nothing less than Christ's — that is, the principle of it. In practice, sadly, it is quite another thing. But in principle there is no difference.
The word that draws the hatred also shapes the one who receives it.
What joy it must have brought to the heart of Jesus when His own received the Father's word from Him! That word shaped them after Christ. It also drew the world's hatred upon them, as it had drawn that hatred upon the Son. They received the Father's word in their hearts, and that is what separated them from the world. The world could not stand it. The more room the Father's word has in our hearts, the more we shall be apart from the world and its ways in daily life.
- The word — "your word" here is not the separate sayings of verse 8. It is the Father's whole mind, given to the Son and passed on. It is testimony, and testimony is what the world cannot bear.
- The line — receiving that word does the separating. Their presence announced that not everything belongs to the world. The line was drawn, and no judgment fell.
- The hatred — hostility is not a sign that something went wrong. It is the same treatment the Son received, passed on with the same place of testimony. The world will put up with a great deal of religion, but not with the Father.
- The standard — the measure of a believer's separation is Christ's own. Daily practice often falls short of it. The principle itself does not shrink.
- The outcome — the word that costs you the world's favour is the word that forms you after Christ. Give it more room in the heart, and the practical distance from the world grows with it.
I do not demand that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them out of evil.
Jesus is about to leave the world. He prays for the disciples He leaves behind in it. His prayer is striking for what it does not ask: not rescue out of the world, but protection inside it.
One writer explains what this world is, and why disciples are left standing in it.
The disciples were taken out of the world in order to represent God in it. They were to walk in His ways, not the world's ways. They were to draw their life and all their conduct from Him, and to live as Christ did. The world is an immense system that Satan built around fallen man, to keep man unaware of his ruin. The Lord does not pray we should be taken out of it, but kept from the evil.
The two halves of the verse ask for different things. One is about place. The other is about the state of the heart. Mixing them up leads to real error. (Older translations read "keep them from the evil"; the ESV reads "the evil one.")
Some confuse two different thoughts. Being kept from or out of the evil is a moral thought. Being kept out of the world is a physical thought. There is no difficulty here. The disciples were physically in the world, as real men. But their spirits were to be kept from the corrupting influences around them.
So should Christians escape the world? One writer answers that plainly, and then draws a picture.
Someone may say, "What are we to do? Are we to go out of the world?" Not at all. Our Lord says plainly, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." In it, but not of it, is the true principle for the Christian. To use a figure, the Christian in the world is like a diver. He is surrounded by an element that would destroy him. He survives only because he is protected from its action, and sustained by unbroken contact with the scene above.
Christ's own longing pointed the other way. Why, then, does He leave them here?
He longed deeply to have us out of the world with Himself. But the time for that had not come, and He would be, as always, subject to the Father's will — "but that you keep them from the evil one." Our business here was now to fill the place of the Lord Jesus in testimony for God. We spoil and ruin this to the degree that we give place to the flesh or the world.
One writer counts what this prayer rules out — and what it asks for instead.
This is not just physical keeping. He does not ask for a hedge of outward separation from the world to be put around them. He does not ask for them to be taken out of it. He asks instead that the truth sanctify them — the truth His word contains, which shows Christ set apart. Christ is set apart from the world for His people, so that we too might be separate from it in heart.
Keeping is God's work. But does it work no matter how we live? One writer adds a caution.
We do not think the promise, "The LORD will keep you from all evil," applies apart from the state of the soul. As said before, faith is the living link between the soul and God. God works through it to bless and protect the believer... How careful we should be, then, to answer to His mind in this. And all the more, because both His love and His power are engaged to keep us undefiled as we walk in His ways.
- Kept, not removed. Christ did not ask for His people to be taken out. He asked for them to be kept where they are.
- Kept from evil. The keeping is moral, not physical. The danger is a defiled spirit, not the simple fact of being in the world.
- Kept for a purpose. They stay to fill Christ's place of testimony for God. Giving place to the flesh or the world ruins it.
- Kept by truth. He asks for no protective hedge. The answer comes through the word that sanctifies, setting the heart apart to a Christ who is Himself set apart.
- Kept through faith. Faith is the living link with God, and His love and power are engaged to keep us undefiled as we walk in His ways.
They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.
Jesus said these same words two verses earlier, and now He says them again to His Father. So is He describing what His people must achieve, or what is already true of them?
The words are a statement about what believers already are. One writer sets fact against duty, and shows what it costs to blur the two.
They are not of the world, as Christ is not of the world. It is a fact, not just a duty — though it is the firmest ground of duty. They are not of the world; it is not merely that they ought not to be. And if they are not, it is a serious inconsistency even to look as if they belong to the world. That is being false to our relationship, for we belong to the Father and are given to the rejected Son, who is finished with the world.
So how did it become a fact? One writer points away from behaviour to where the believer came from.
Notice these words of our Lord about His people: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world!" He is not giving them a command to try to be heavenly. He says, "they are not of the world!" By birth, by being, they are heavenly — "born from above!" ... The man who receives this breath of heaven is made a heavenly person. Jesus often said to the Jews, "I am from above," "I am not of this world," "you do not know where I come from." He knew where He was from and where He was going. Others did not. So it is with the saints.
The short phrase "just as I" sets the scale for the whole sentence. One writer notes that the Lord says it twice to emphasise it.
Even more plainly He says, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." To emphasise this He repeats it twice (verses 14 and 16). His separation from the world — and who can measure how deep it goes — is the measure of ours.
Another writer weighs that measure against how believers live, and separates principle from practice.
I am afraid that few really grasp the true nature and practical results of their position as joined to the crucified and risen Jesus. Few really enter into the depth and meaning of our Lord's words, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." ... The measure of the saint's separation from the world is nothing less than Christ's — that is, the principle of it. In practice, sadly, it is quite another thing; but in principle there is no difference.
Being not of the world does not mean leaving it. One writer shows how that worked in Christ's own life, and what kind of place the world is.
The world was not Christ's aim. Through His whole life, though He had not left the world, He was no more of the world than if He had been in heaven. When practice is in question, He says, "They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through your truth." Truth is not of the world: this world is a vast lie.
Why say it twice? One writer reads the repeat as the ground for what the Lord asks next.
He repeats this thought as the basis of their position here below. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." What then were they to be? By what rule, by what model, were they to be formed? By the truth, and the Father's word is truth. Christ was always the Word, but the living Word among men. In the Scriptures we have it, written and settled: they reveal Him, bear witness to Him.
- Born, not built. Believers are not of the world by birth and being, not by effort. They are heavenly because they were born from above.
- Measured by Him. "Just as I" sets the scale: Christ's own separation from the world. The Lord repeats the sentence twice to press it home.
- Stationed, not removed. Christ lived His whole life in the world. Yet He was no more of it than if He were in heaven. That is the pattern for those He leaves here.
- Formed by the word. The fact comes first. Then comes the question of what shapes them: the Father's truth, which is His word.
- Owned in practice. It is a fact, not just a duty. So even looking as if we belong to the world is being false to the relationship we already have.
Sanctify them by the truth thy word is truth.
In this prayer the Lord asks the Father to set His disciples apart. Two questions follow. What does it mean to be set apart? And why does the Lord name the Father's word as the means?
Sanctification has two sides, and the word works both of them.
Sanctification implies that we are, not only set apart from evil, but set apart in heart and life for Christ. The Lord's words show us that this devoted life of practical sanctification to Christ comes about in two ways. First, by the truth... On the one hand, the word exposes and judges our words, our ways and our walk. It judges even the secrets of our hearts, all that may spoil a life of devotion to Christ. On the other hand, the Father's word reveals to us the Father in all His love and grace and holiness as set forth in Christ.
This setting apart follows from knowing what is real.
The root idea of sanctification is setting apart. The Son has given the Father's word, which introduces us to all His love, His thoughts, His purposes, His glory. All this is truth; that is, reality of the most divine kind. The world lives so much in a region of unreality and make-believe. It works to set up systems that have no solid ground and that must pass away in the end. If we know divine realities, we must stand apart from the world's unrealities.
The Lord is speaking to the Father, so "your word" means the Father's word. Commentators warn against narrowing this prayer to a setting apart for service.
It is easy for people to misunderstand the Saviour's words, as those do who lower and narrow them to a setting apart for ministry. But He had at heart a deeper, more personal desire. He wanted the disciples themselves to be filled with the truth, shaped and formed by it... "Your word," the Father's word, "is truth." Truths had been made known before, but never the truth itself, until Jesus came, for He is the truth. He was the first, and He alone, to show openly what everyone and everything really is: God, man, even Satan; heaven, earth, hell, and all things in them.
The Lord did not name the law as the means of holiness. He named the word. The difference is the difference between a rule and an object the heart can love. (Older translations read "sanctify them through your truth".)
"Sanctify them in the truth." It is the word of God applied to judge every thought and feeling in me. He does not say, "Sanctify them by the law," but by the word. Persons take the law as a rule, but you want power; you want an object that seizes your affections. What object does the law give you? Where is the thing, the One, you are to love? Where is He? Who is He? The law tells me of nothing but a Judge. It sets no object before my soul to give me blessed and holy affections. The Father's word does give me this.
Because the word is the means, it is also the measure. We do not get to decide for ourselves what a set-apart life looks like.
This is a saying much to be remembered. It teaches us that we are not the judges of what sanctification or holiness is. God's word decides that. Holiness is the character, or mind, that God's word — the truth — forms in us.
That same word also lights up a world that is otherwise unreadable.
Christ is the truth: the word of God is truth about everything. Do I want to know what my heart is? The Word tells me. Do I want to know what God is? The Word tells me. What Christ as a Saviour is? What Satan and his schemes are? The Word will tell me. And therefore I have the Word to make all plain, when I want to go through the world, which is a labyrinth for anyone else.
Sanctification here is not an effort to squeeze the world out. It is a heart occupied with something better.
All the Scriptures are truth. But one truth in particular makes the child of God separate from the world: the revelation of the Father's name to his heart. That revelation sanctifies him, or sets him apart, to the love of the Father... he has, in the infinite kindness of God, the love that Christ dwelt in for his portion. So long as that love is filling his heart, there is not room in him for the world.
- Word given — the Lord asks the Father to set His people apart by the word, not by the law.
- Word reveals — it works two ways. It exposes what spoils devotion to Christ, and it shows the Father in His love and grace.
- Word defines — we do not decide what holiness is; the character formed by God's word is holiness.
- Word separates — if you know what is real in God, you cannot be at home in the world's make-believe.
- Word fills — when the Father's love fills the heart, there is no room left for the world. That is sanctification in practice.
As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world;
In the verse just before, the Lord asked the Father to set His disciples apart by the truth. Now He gives them the same commission the Father gave Him. What does such a sending involve? What do they carry, who is fit for it, and how far does it reach?
John's Gospel presents Jesus as the One the Father sent. Here that title stretches to cover His followers. One reference work traces the word "apostle" back to its root meaning:
The Greek word apostolos means "a messenger," "one sent"... It is also used in a much higher and stronger sense. It implies a divine commission in the one sent — first of the Lord Himself, and then of the twelve disciples He chose to be with Him during His ministry here... He was the Sent One.
One writer notes how often this Gospel returns to the theme, and where it lands:
It is remarkable how many times this Gospel calls the Lord the One whom the Father sent into the world. In slightly different words it says this more than forty times... He was, therefore, not native to the world, as though He sprang out of it. He came from above, and all that He was He brought with Him... Now something new comes about. In setting it up, the Lord was fulfilling His own words in His prayer to the Father — see John 17:18. He was departing, and they now were to be sent as from Him.
A sending needs a message. One commentator names it in a single line:
To carry what? Christ made known by the Father's word. I cannot be sent into the world if I am in it and of it. And I can only go there as sent by Christ if I am fully joined with Him in the spirit of my mind.
The pattern runs in two links. The Son makes the Father known, and the disciples make the Son known:
As the holy and perfect One, Jesus had been sent into the world by the Father, that He might represent Him and make Him known. Now He sends His disciples into the world in similar manner. They were to represent Him and make Him known. What qualified them for this was the sanctification of which the previous verse had spoken. If His plan had been to shut them away from the world, no such mission could have happened. It also could not have happened if the truth had not sanctified them.
There is no contradiction here. Being taken out of the world by grace is what makes the sending into it possible:
It flowed from One apart from the world and above it, whom the Father had sent into it on an errand of infinite love for the Father's glory... So the Son sent the disciples, joined with Himself in heaven and charged with the Father's testimony to the world. Had they been of the world, they could not be sent into it; but, as taken out of it by grace in Christ, they were not of it, and could be sent.
So the Christian's place has two movements: taken out of the world, then sent back into it:
Notice here again that He, Christ Himself, is the standard. Our separation from the world matches Christ's own separation from it. And our being sent into the world, in verse 18, follows that same standard. The Lord takes us out, breaks our links with this world, and then sends us back that we may be here for Him.
The word "world" also fixes how far the errand reaches:
He does not merely say, "Sanctify them in your truth"... but further He says, "As you sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." It was no question of the land of Judea now. The world was before them. So, if there was the intimacy of setting apart to the Father, there is also a universality of mission.
Being set apart is not an end in itself. It gives the disciples a standing in two directions:
This separation from evil, and sanctification to God, is in view of the disciples' service — that they may be morally fit to carry out their mission... Already the Lord has viewed the disciples as in His position before the Father; now He views them as having His place before the world.
- Sent — the Lord is the Sent One of the Father, and He hands that same commission on: they are sent as from Him.
- Carrying — what they bear into the world is Christ made known, as He made the Father known.
- Separated — being not of the world is not withdrawal from it, but the one qualification for being sent into it.
- Everywhere — the field is no longer one land but the whole world.
- Fitted — being set apart by the truth is what makes them fit to hold His place before the world.